


when I’m feeling puzzled, girl, you put me back together

by simplylalaa



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Peraltiago, b99 - Freeform, b99 fanfic, pre-relationship peraltiago, sick!jake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 10:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20226280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplylalaa/pseuds/simplylalaa
Summary: A sick Jake Peralta convinces Amy Santiago to come over and take care of him.





	when I’m feeling puzzled, girl, you put me back together

**Author's Note:**

> hiiiiiii !!! here is a fic i started a LONG time ago based on a sick jake, pre-relationship peraltiago prompt from The Amazing @startofamoment that i saw and couldn’t help but write
> 
> BUT FIRST i would like to give a huge !! thank you to the amazing @elsaclack for all of her help on this <3 em you are an Absolute Legend and sooo wonderful and this fic was aimless until you helped and i wouldn’t have finished it without you
> 
> title is from the song one and only by cuco (:

On her days off, Amy Santiago normally doesn’t expect much. She normally takes the time off to relax and lounge about in her home, maybe reading a book, catching up on her crime shows, making extremely detailed binders (her personal favorite), or sometimes even painting. So, on this rainy Tuesday morning on her day off, Amy Santiago was definitely not expecting a call from her partner, much less to take care of a sick Jacob Peralta.

“Ames,” he had whined nasally over the phone. “I’m out of cold medicine. My throat huuurts.”

“Jake,” she sighed. “It’s my day off.”

“I know, I’m sorry, but can you please come over? Charles is at work, my mom is out of town, and I–” His voice, thick from congestion, paused before admitting quietly, “I–I need you.”

Her stomach did a somersault as her brain processed his last three words.

“Okay.” Without thinking, the words left her mouth quietly. “I’ll be right there.”

And that was how, after stopping by the bodega on the corner of her street to pick up cold medicine and popsicles, she ended up here— at a sick Jake Peralta’s apartment on her day off. He opens the door after her second knock, and she’s taken aback by his appearance. He’s even paler than usual, there are dark rings underneath his eyes, his nose is red and puffy, and his dark curls are sticking every which way.

“You came.” The smile that grows on his face immediately once he sees her is interrupted by a nasty coughing fit, which he directs away from Amy and into the crook of his elbow.

“Wow, you really are sick.”

“Hey,” he pouts. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She rolls her eyes and pushes past him. “We all know you have a flare for the dramatic, Peralta.”

“Ha-ha.” he laughs dryly as he shuts his front door and follows after her. “Make fun of the _dying_ man, why don’t you!”

She walks into his living space, taking note of the mess around her. Tissues are strewn about and there are empty cough drop wrappers littered across the coffee table. Empty orange soda cans are also spotted around the room, and she rolls her eyes because of course Jake drinks orange soda when he’s sick and not orange juice. Something fluffy catches her eye and she notices a blanket draped across one of his massage chairs.

“What’s this?” She asks as she picks up the gray fluffy blanket, noting how it feels strangely heavy.

Jake shrugs and plops onto the couch, brushing aside some tissues and onto the floor. Amy can’t help but cringe, her OCD tendencies begging her to pick up all the trash and disinfect _everything_.

“Some fancy gravity blanket thing? I dunno, Charles dropped it off this morning before going to work. Said it was _magical_— like being a baby swaddled by your mom. His words, not mine.”

Amy hums in response, feeling the blanket between her fingers. Her mom was telling her about these. She said they might help with her panic attacks. Before she can ponder this further, Jake’s coughing snaps her attention back to him. She frowns, and rummages through her plastic bag for the cold medicine she picked up.

She finds it, holding up the bottle. “I brought the medicine.”

He smiles again, grateful, though weaker than before. “You’re a lifesaver, Ames.”

She tries to ignore the rush in her tummy from hearing his voice say her nickname that only he ever seems to use. “Yeah, well, you owe me one, Peralta.”  
He’s still smiling, though he now has a strange look on his face, and something about it terrifies her.

“Here,” she clears her throat abruptly and plops the cold medicine down on the coffee table. “You take this and I’ll go make you some tea.”  
Immediately, a loud groan leaves his mouth. She ignores his sounds of protest and she leaves him to go to the kitchen.

“But I _hate_ tea!” He calls out after her.

She rolls her eyes to herself. She can hear him shuffling on the couch and then the opening credits of Die Hard (of course) begin to play as she makes sure to place the popsicles in the freezer first thing before they melt. She finds his tea pot, and sets about boiling some water. She’s rummaging through his cabinets, trying to find where he keeps his mugs, when she stumbles upon two familiar grey and white knit objects wrapped around black mugs. It’s the tea cozy set she knitted him three years ago for the squad’s Secret Santa.

_ “What is this?” He had asked when he opened the box and pulled it out. “Tiny beanies? You know my head is way bigger than this, right, Santiago?”_

_She had rolled her eyes then, ignoring the teasing smirk on his face. “It’s a tea cozy set! To keep your tea warm when it’s in the mug.”_

_“So, like, some kind of beanie for a mug?”_

She chuckles to herself at the memory, an involuntary smile growing on her face. The mugs were the only ones in the cabinet, aside from a dusty Die Hard mug on the top shelf that looked like it was just memorabilia. Does he actually use them? A bud of warmth in her chest grows at the thought.

“I had to go out a buy mugs for those, my other one didn’t fit.”

She jumps, startled by Jake’s voice behind her, and turns to find him leaning against the fridge, staring at the tea cozies with that same unreadable expression. She stands there for a moment, not quite knowing what to say, but she’s quickly saved when another cough wracks Jake’s body. He shivers violently despite being wrapped in one of his thickest hoodies and warmest pair of sweats.

She frowns. “Jake, you should be lying down and under some blankets.”

He groans and makes a dramatic show of turning around. “Being sick is so _boring_.”

She rolls her eyes as she follows after him, placing her hand on his back and gently pushing him toward the couch. She swipes the weighted blanket off the massage chair and drapes it across Jake, tucking it around his shoulders.

“There.” She stands back. “Better?”

Undeniable affection swims in his cinnamon eyes and it’s making her heart do weird things in her chest.

He smiles softly. “S’ perfect.”

She smiles nervously and hurries back to the kitchen, fixing them both a cup of tea, Jake’s cup including a notably larger amount of sugar.

She returns to a sniffly but cozy looking Jake on the couch and hands him his mug. For a moment, she gets lost in just how adorable he looks, wrapped up like a burrito in his weighted blanket. Suddenly, she feels this overwhelming urge to crawl up next to him, to snuggle against his chest and feel his arms wrapped around her.  
The thought startles her, and she quickly snaps herself out of it with a shake of her head.

Instead, she passes him his tea and sits beside him with her own mug, curling her legs and tucking her feet underneath her. She’s glances over at him from atop the rim of her mug as she sips her tea, again unable to ignore just how cute he looks, snuggled underneath the fuzzy blanket and holding a mug clad in the tea cozy she herself knitted for him.

He eyes the mug suspiciously. “How do I know you didn’t poison this?”

She scoffs at his attempt to get out of drinking the tea. “Drink up, Peralta.”

He begrudgingly takes a sip. His face immediately scrunches up in disgust. “Ugh, blech, what is this?”

“Ginger and chamomile.”

“Couldn’t you have at least added sugar?”

She gives him a flat look. “Jake, there are like 5 spoons of sugar in that.”

“Oh,” he says indignantly. “Well, I still don’t like it.”

Exasperated, she rolls her eyes as she says, “Just drink the tea, Jake, it’ll make you feel better.”

“Tea is so gross though!” He whines, shooting her his puppy dog eyes.

She sighs. “If you drink your tea you can have the popsicles I brought.”

He immediately perks up at the word. “Popsicles? You brought— wait—” he eyes her skeptically, “they’re not those weird fruit ones you tricked me into eating that one time, are they?”

She laughs and can’t help the roll of her eyes. “No, they’re the artificial ones with all the chemicals you love so much.”

He grins at her. “Noice. You know me so well, Ames.”

“Yeah, yeah, shut up and drink your tea before I pour it down your throat.” She threatens playfully.

He laughs, but obliges.

They sit for a while, drinking their tea together (with Jake taking especially tiny sips). Die Hard plays in the background but Jake doesn’t pay attention, instead focusing on Amy as she complains about the perp she brought in yesterday who smelled like hot dogs and wouldn’t stop whistling while she filled out his paperwork. They laugh together, trading worst perp stories and reminiscing on old cases. Eventually, Amy finishes her tea first, and being the proper guest that she is, takes her used mug to the kitchen to wash it.

As she sets her mug to dry, she glances back toward the living room where she knows a mess of tissues and empty cans remain, and Amy can’t help it any longer. Determined, she rummages through the cabinets underneath his kitchen sink in search of a trash bag, finding one almost immediately.  
She returns to a drowsy looking Jake with still a remaining half mug of cold tea. He’s already switched to the second film and she rolls her eyes internernally at the obsession. Instead of sitting back down, she sets out to clean the mess in front of her. She begins by gathering all the stray tissues on the floor and the coffee table and placing them in the trash bag, picking up a few empty soda cans along the way.

Jake snaps his head over to Amy when he notices what she’s doing and frowns.

“Hey— hey, you don’t have to worry about that.”

She looks up at him and says, “I know,” before continuing her task, scrunching her nose at a particularly large bunch of tissues.

He sighs. “Really, Ames, it’s fine— I don’t care.”

“Yeah, but I do.”

“Amy,” he sits up a bit. “Honestly, I—I’d rather you just come sit with me.”

She straightens up in surprise, dropping the cough drop wrappers from her hand. He smiles at her shyly, and her heart skips a beat.

“Um,” she sputters.

“Just sit with me? Please?”

She nods, offering a shy smile of her own. “Okay.”

She returns to her spot on the couch and they sit back, watching Die Hard in comfortable silence save for the occasional cough from Jake. Amy’s heart swells in her chest when a quarter of the way into the movie, Jake lifts one side of the gravity blanket so she can scoot closer and drape it over her legs. It was almost as if he knew the exact moment she was starting to get cold. She’s close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his thighs where they sit just centimeters away from her own and it’s making her stomach do funny things.

“Hey,” he says quietly a little while later, the movie almost over. He’s looking down at her with warmth and affection and something else she can’t quite place but it makes her body feel like it’s on fire. “Thanks for coming over. I really needed this.”

Before she can stop herself she’s placing her hand on his forearm not covered by the blanket, letting her thumb rub across his skin. He stares down at the spot where her thumb grazes, and he can’t fight the smile that grows on his face.

“We’re partners,” she tells him softly. “I’ll always be here when you need me.”

He smiles even brighter down at her and she matches his with one of her own.

They end up falling asleep somewhere in the middle of the third Die Hard movie. Both of them nestled underneath the comfort of the weighted blanket, Jake’s head tilted back against the couch cushions, and Amy’s own against his shoulder.

No, this was definitely not how Amy expected to spend her day off. But she surprisingly wouldn’t want it any other way.

_______________

Just a couple hours later, a sick and groggy Jake Peralta wakes to find a peaceful Amy, asleep on his shoulder.

While he definitely feels better than he did this morning, he still feels horrible. His nose is congested, his throat is burning, and he’s simultaneously freezing and overheating. But none of that matters because Amy freaking Santiago is in his apartment, cuddled up against him on his couch while his favorite movie is playing on the TV. He can’t help the wide grin that stretches across his face as he twists awkwardly to look at her better.

He’s so close to her, close enough to see the faint scattering of freckles across her nose. He can see her dark eyelashes twitch as her eyelids move slightly in her sleep. Her lips are parted slightly and they’re the color of strawberries. He’s taken aback by how undeniably and painfully beautiful she is. He wants nothing more at that moment than to lean down and peck the top of her cute button nose and pull her tighter against him.

She actually came here today, and on her day off of all days. She came to help him when he needed her, and she took care of him. She wrapped him in fuzzy weighted blankets and made him drink tea out of a mug with its own little beanie that she herself knitted for him and— and she made him feel… loved.

A stray lock of hair has come loose from the low bun tied at the back of her head. Gently, without thinking, he reaches across and tucks it behind her ear, relishing how smooth and silky it feels against his fingertips. Amy stirs slightly, and her eyes flutter open. Jake’s flight response goes off, and he feels the urge to yank his hand away as fast as he can. But she smiles up at him, drowsy and warm, and instead he lets his hand fall slowly, grazing against her cheek in the process.

“Hey,” She whispers. “How are you feeling?”

He smiles. “Better. Thanks to you.”

A faint blush creeps up her cheeks. She looks away, removing her hand from under the blanket to check her watch.

“Wow, it’s gotten late. I should probably head out.”

She’s already shifting, moving to get up from the couch. Without thinking he reaches out, grabbing a hold of her arm before she can stand up completely.

“Wait, um.” He stalls, a sudden desperation flooding his veins at the thought of her leaving. “Do you wanna— can you maybe—”

She raises an eyebrow, silently urging him to spit it out.

“Do you wanna stay?” He blurts. “We can watch the True Detective episodes I have on my DVR and order a pizza?”

A crease forms between her eyebrows as she sighs. “I—I have work tomorrow, Jake.”

“I know, I just, I really don’t want to be alone right now.”

She purses her lips as a conflicted look swirls in her eyes.

He’s about to tell her never mind— that it’s okay, and she’s right, she should leave before it gets any later— but then a slow smile graces her face.

“You owe me double now, Peralta.”

She settles back in to her spot on the couch underneath the weight of the fuzzy blanket, and Jake grins as he scoots even closer to her. Without thinking, he wraps his arm around her. Before he has time to properly freak out about what he just did, Amy rests her head back against his shoulder. His heart flip flops in his chest, unprepared for just how amazing it feels to actually have Amy Santiago in his arms.

He stares down at her, in awe of both her presence and her beauty. There must be a weird expression on his face because she looks up at him with furrowed eyebrows and a nervous smile.

“What?” she asks him.

He shakes his head, a warm smile spreading across his face. “Nothing. You’re just— you’re really pretty.”

Her cheeks grow hot and she stares at him suspiciously, quickly tucking her hair back from both sides of her face behind her ears. “Wow, you really are sick to be blubbering this kind of nonsense.”

His lips pull downwards in a frown. Nonsense? Does she not realize how amazing she is? How much he loves being around her?

Without thinking, and determined to prove his point, he swoops his head down and kisses her.

She’s surprised at first, but then she’s kissing him back and it’s the most amazing thing in the entire world. He threads his fingers through her dark locks like he’s been longing to do for so long, and her strawberry lips are even softer than he had imagined.

It’s official. Kissing Amy Santiago is his new favorite thing to do in the entire universe.

It ends too soon, though, when after just a few moments Amy pulls away.

“Jake.” She places a hand on his chest and shakes her head. “You don’t mean this, you’re just— you’re just sick.”

Jake frowns, reaching a hand up to cup the side of her cheek as he brushes the crest of her cheekbone with his thumb. “I absolutely do mean that. Amy, you are the most amazing, intelligent, badass, beautiful woman I have ever met, and I’ve been wanting to kiss you for a long time.”

And it’s painfully true. How many nights has he spent lying in bed awake at night, dreaming of Amy and her soft dark hair and pink lips, wishing he was the one she came home to at night? Far too many to count, and he’s glad he finally kissed her, though he wishes he wasn’t dying when he did. 

Amy’s dark eyes are wide as she gapes at him. “Wait, you— you _like_ me?”

Jakes almost laughs at the disbelief in her voice. “Duh. Why else would I call you over here and let you make me drink gross tea?”

A smile tugs at her lips, and before Jake can process that as a good sign, her hands are cupping the sides of his face and she’s kissing him again. He can’t help but grin against her lips, and he can feel a smile of her own grow. Their teeth knock together, and it’s messy, but it’s also perfect.

He pulls back this time, smirking playfully. “So… do you like _me_?”

She lets out a laugh, and it’s the most beautiful sound in the world. It’s a sound he wants to hear for the rest of his life.  
“Yes, dummy. Now shut up and kiss me.”

He happily obliges.

_______________

Amy wakes the next morning to a sore throat and stuffy nose, but it’s not enough to ruin her mood because she’s also wrapped up in the arms of her best friend and her partner. He ends up making breakfast for her (partly because she’s sick but also because she really can’t cook) while she’s faced with the awkward task of calling in sick the day after Jake does.

Luckily for her (and Jake) it’s his day off now.

_______________

Jake Peralta’s day off normally consists of eating greasy junk food and candy while reenacting his favorite Die Hard scenes.

So, it’s safe to say he definitely was not expecting to take care of a sick Amy Santiago. Especially not a sick Amy Santiago in his apartment, wearing his oversized police academy t-shirt and a pair of his boxers. Nor did he expect to be able to kiss and hold said partner freely as she watches him cook her breakfast from her spot on the counter after spending the night.

They end up eating scrambled eggs and pancakes, and drinking coffee out of the mugs with Amy’s hand knit tea cozies. Jake takes any chance he can get to kiss Amy, and his heart swells in his chest when she seems to do the same thing.

No, this was definitely not what Jake Peralta expected on his day off. But he wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
